Friday, August 08, 2014

Big Gang Sweep

An alleged longtime heroin and crack dealer, described by authorities as a patriarch of a Gangster Disciples gang faction, was arrested today along with dozens of others during a crackdown on two open-air drug spots on Chicago’s West Side.

Prosecutors alleged that Johnny “Goo” Herndon, 55, directed the lucrative drug-trafficking organization since the early 1990s and amassed substantial real estate holdings with the illicit profits.

At a news conference this afternoon, U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon called the six-month investigation –headed by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives –a nimble takedown of a dangerous gang faction that had terrorized a neighborhood for years.

And an interesting aside:

In his two decades in control of the organization, Herndon used drug proceeds to amass more than $1.6 million real estate, including multi-unit buildings and Section 8 housing on the West Side and in Gary, Ind. He also rehabbed many of the properties using drug proceeds, the charges alleged.

They've started becoming "legitimate" businessmen.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and with a void this large, there's the potential for some blow back. Careful out there boys and girls.

Drug dealers dabbling in real estate is nothing new. Before the market crashed in 2008, there were numerous counts of fraud being committed here by drug dealers and leaders of various local drug cartels.

Where ya been SCC? They've always delved in the real estate/ legitimate side of things. Remember the last leader of the 4 Corner Hustlers? Was with a CHA worker working on getting a building "section 8 approved" at the time he was killed. Another 4 Corner Hustler heavy hitter arrested with a few of his boys in 015 a few years back had a building with a hair salon business store front, and a barbershop. We can give props(?) to Larry Hoover for that. He molded his GDs after the Mob and a lot of other gangs in Chicago followed that model also.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, and with a void this large, there's the potential for some blow back."

Yup, two big takedowns on the west side this summer alone. Even though the west side dealers are known for working with rivals, doesn't seem to be the case this year, and it doesn't seem that those spots will be "chalkie free" in the near future. Although I also get what you are specifically meaning. Stay safe.

SCC, the purchase of real estate to launder the dirty proceeds isn't 'new'. Do a search for: Gloria Steele police officer. In 1992, she was convicted of laundering money for her son's drug operation. One of the things that drew attention to them was their penchant for walking into real estate closings with bags of cash. Something like seven properties were seized.

HOUSTON, Texas -- Individuals and families immigrating to the U.S. legally are required to pay for and undergo medical examinations by approved physicians; those who are deemed as having "inadmissible health-related conditions" are not allowed into the country. But the same standards are not applied to illegal immigrants, many of whom remain in the U.S. despite testing positive for diseases that would prevent law-abiding migrants from entering.

Another futile attempt by Rahm and McGeeWiz, using the police as political pawns. It's is their answer to crime, just so happens his re-election blitz is coming soon. He's anticipating Karen Lewis or Fioretti to announce their candidacy and he needs a crime fighting platform.Gang roundup...bulllllllshit.Call in the State Police, Sheriffs, FBI or The Amazing Spider-Man, but by ALL means call the Media for a press release!

This is a bit off topic SCC but the powers that be plan on ultimately releasing every officers cr history or making it available upon request. That's right every officer will have their Complaint History available under the guise of transparency and credibility ...... You heard it here first. The first step is to release these records of certain officers then when it raises more questions than it answers the dept. Will make every officers complaint history available. Wait until an officer goes to court on a trial and the defense atty introduces the officers complaint history as evidence..... This is not good, stay tuned....... This is in the making right now at 35th street. They just want to make sure it stands up to a possible court action.

This is nothing but a dog and pony show and a charade on the public. What are the Feds going to do about the bankers, lawyers and west-side politicians that assisted Johnny Herndon laundry his drug money? Not a DAMN thing!

Anonymous said...Wouldn't have this problem if drugs were legalized.(sarcasm)

8/08/2014 12:19:00 AM

Retired cop here. I've been saying forever that ALL drugs should be legalized, quality controlled, and taxed.

Since the 60's and probably before then, anyone who wanted anything could pretty much get it if they wanted. A certain percentage of those who experimented would get hooked on something. The same would apply if they were legalized.

The insane amount of money spent on the failed "war on drugs" and the cost of incarceration would be saved.

Money would be generated by taxation that could be used for rehabilitation of those same people that are already getting addicted to illegal drugs.

And the whole fucking gang thing would virtually be eradicated. Yeah, I know, their would still be people in the drug trade trying to get a piece of the action just like moonshiners try to beat the alcohol taxes.

The "War on Drugs" is a total failure and has been a gang enabler, not a deterrent.

I find this interesting that buildings could be purchased without verification and documentation of income. Think about your mortgage. All the documentation you provided which were forwarded to private companies like the credit bureaus and Lexis-Nexis for verification. No verification-no loan. After submission, your personal financial dossier is amassed as their business records for sale with their subscribers paying a fee for the information you were strong-armed into giving up. All information given was scrubbed for authenticity by their extensive all encompassing information collection networks. You are intentionally misled on privacy and confidentiality. Your privacy ends when you voluntarily submit your records for inspection letting the privacy genie out of the bottle and ultimately submitted records become their private sector intellectual property to migrate into investigative/ marketing/ verification databases for sale without your knowledge, without your consent. Its about increasing revenues and making the product more “valuable” and more “encompassing” to information seeking subscribers. All perfectly legal of course.

These companies also collect public information on criminal cases but somehow this drug kingpin was able to avoid detection when getting his loans and registering his properties with taxing authorities. Declare income that cannot be verified and the taxing authorities are contacted by law initiating a criminal/civil investigation. You would think the I.R.S. would have conducted a thorough T.E.A. Party-like investigation on a documented criminal with a narcotics distribution history with substantial assets with no legitimate source of income. Instead federal taxing bodies would rather investigate political opposition who seek change while expressing their Constitutionally protected 1st Amendment Rights petitioning government. A criminal investigation nonetheless for those who challenge the status quo.

It’s a safe bet the drug enterprise entrepreneur had full use of professional services from lawyers, accountants and investment professionals keeping his investments legit thereby keeping the tax and law enforcement boogiemens away. Wonder of any of those directly involved in this conspiracy will lose their personal freedom and be stripped of their professional licenses. And don’t forget lawyers, accountants, investment advisers and government agencies (IRS included) that routinely use and have a license agreement to purchase the use of private-sector intrusive databases under a cloak of secrecy. The aforementioned are the biggest users and source of for-profit revenues for the credit bureaus and Lexis-Nexis companies. Lots of available information but no investigation by govt. agencies and inquiries by those private sector holders of professional licenses into possible criminal/money laundering activities.

See something; say something is a motto to live by. The government couldn’t figure this out all along and this thing morphed into a multimillion dollar criminal narcotics distribution enterprise laundering drug money and then collecting federal money in the form of section 8. Section 8 money seems to flow without some sort of verification of legally acquired assets, background check or possible criminal connection for in essence, a federal housing provider. Now enter the feds riding their white horse saving impoverished communities from the criminal who should have been investigated on so many fronts by so many federal agencies. And we put our faith in all these agencies namely, the IRS, the DEA, the federal dept. of housing, the justice department and the dept. of urban affairs to use common sense, to exercise due diligence, to initiate investigations and to enforce criminal laws. With all the red flags it seems negligence of the obvious has prevailed and is a standard operating procedure. Now the feds are hailed as urban heroes.

To 2:18 pm the war on drugs is not a failure, for the rgt people there is a lot of money being made off the war on drugs. Also what do you think would happen if they couldn't make money selling drugs on the corner. I don't think they would go to college or get a job so the violence rate on ordinary citizens robberies, burglaries, thefts would skyrocket. I'd rather they keep the majority of violence in their area in fact give them a free zone like in the Wire.

OT have spied a very twinkly and sparkly black SUV-type vehicle valet parked infront of viagra triangle watering holes that has an official looking CPD plate and just a capital "M" on it. this by chance wouldnt be McGivemeadouble's vehicle, would it? not a LEO, just curious.

Anonymous said...Wouldn't have this problem if drugs were legalized.(sarcasm)

8/08/2014 12:19:00 AM

Different retired cop here.I never understood how the war on drugs differed much from prohibition.Idiots will always find they're drug of choice.Seriously,theres a huge epidemic of heroin use now.No one has a problem getting it.Legalize it and put the dope boys out of business and if some dumb ass ODs on legal dope,oh well.

Do you find it interesting that A.T.F. arms the Mexican Drug Cartels with assault rifles to protect their illegal dope peddling muti-national drug distribution network on the United States border? A.T.F. is now the lead investigating agency who arrests a street-level distribution supply chain client for amassing a sizable fortune derived from the products supplied covertly in the U.S. by the same criminal narcotics cartel network. Flashback to Operation Fast & Furious which this federal law enforcement agency under the direction of Eric Holder and the Justice Department facilitated straw purchases of assault rifles to protect the cartel associates from other competitive narcotic distribution networks and yes, border patrol agents? And let us not forget the U.S. Border Agent Brain Terry in December 2010 who made the ultimate sacrifice. How many agents were assigned to CPD?

Thank God for the feds. We all had a tingle down our legs when the U.S. Attorneys dressed in their power suits and the female U.S. Attorneys dressed in the best Hillary Clinton like pants suits announced the takedown of conservative vicelord Kenneth Shoulders and his “HEROIN HIGHWAY”. He was described as the new face of Organized Crime. Deputy Wysinger declared he will stop other gangs from claiming the area. Halleluiah, I do believe.

That was June 12th. On July 25 on those same 12 square blocks that Big Shoulders controlled, a 13year old was shot dead, 3-14 year olds were shot up and a 15 year old was shot to pieces. So much for the Emmy nominated star studded press conference and the old school police tuff talk by Deputy Wysinger. These bigger than life press conferences and rhetoric always are the opening ceremony for the battle of the thugs on the same scale of ISIS warfare in densely populated civilian areas in the middle east. It seems as a rule when the feds get involved, the groundwork for further associated disasters is laid.

Today, a cop who came on the job at 21 years of age, would have to have been born in 1968 or earlier. In other words, they would have to have at least twenty five years on the job.

Wrong. I came on at 21yoa. Born in '70 w/23.5 yrs on now. Nice getting to be the real police for a decent number of years before the winds changed and made this job all about self preservation. And having a "real job" early in life was a great thing to start saving for retirement. It's iust too freakin bad that 29 and a day only puts me at 50, a lot of years short (if things stay the same) of being able to go with health care. It all makes me really wish I knew some kind of trade to fall back on cuz this job and this city sucks bigtime.

Anonymous Anonymous said...Today, a cop who came on the job at 21 years of age, would have to have been born in 1968 or earlier. In other words, they would have to have at least twenty five years on the job.

Wrong. I came on at 21yoa. Born in '70 w/23.5 yrs on now. Nice getting to be the real police for a decent number of years before the winds changed and made this job all about self preservation. And having a "real job" early in life was a great thing to start saving for retirement. It's iust too freakin bad that 29 and a day only puts me at 50, a lot of years short (if things stay the same) of being able to go with health care. It all makes me really wish I knew some kind of trade to fall back on cuz this job and this city sucks bigtime.

8/08/2014 08:19:00 PM

Obviously there are people who are now on the job that came on at 21 yoa but were born after 1968. My point was that those who have twenty five years on are in the minority, hence, most of today's coppers have only been exposed to police hating mayors.

The math is correct. Born in 1968 plus 21 years brings you to 1989. add eleven years to bring you up to 2000 and then add fourteen years. Twenty five is what you get. Yes there can be some number of months involved in the equation and you might have only twenty four years and x number of months on. You fit that formula but missed the gist of the post. Most cops on the job now have never worked for a mayor that wasn't a police hater. You proved my point.

Anonymous said...Anonymous said...Wouldn't have this problem if drugs were legalized.(sarcasm)

8/08/2014 12:19:00 AM

Different retired cop here.I never understood how the war on drugs differed much from prohibition.Idiots will always find they're drug of choice.Seriously,theres a huge epidemic of heroin use now.No one has a problem getting it.Legalize it and put the dope boys out of business and if some dumb ass ODs on legal dope,oh well.

This is a bit off topic SCC but the powers that be plan on ultimately releasing every officers cr history or making it available upon request. That's right every officer will have their Complaint History available under the guise of transparency and credibility ...... You heard it here first. The first step is to release these records of certain officers then when it raises more questions than it answers the dept. Will make every officers complaint history available. Wait until an officer goes to court on a trial and the defense atty introduces the officers complaint history as evidence..... This is not good, stay tuned....... This is in the making right now at 35th street. They just want to make sure it stands up to a possible court action.

8/08/2014 10:50:00 AMHeard this same information/rumor from someone who would know.

Anonymous said...Wouldn't have this problem if drugs were legalized.(sarcasm)

8/08/2014 12:19:00 AM

You say that with sarcasm but you are at least partially correct. Take the problem apart, do we really care if a bunch of dope fiends get high and occasionally OD and get nasty diseases? A little bit maybe but that is not the real problem.

Violence, killing, corruption of segments of society, destabilization of entire nations not too far from our borders, thats some of the problems.

Delving further, profit is the real problem. Forget dope, the giant river of money flowing is the problem. You think the west side would be going up if there wasn't vast amounts of easy money in it? Hell no.

What decriminalization of heroin and cocaine will do is take the profit motive right out of it. No more river of money in it because you can get the shit at the government run/sanctioned/sponsored dispensary in designated areas. Why buy who knows what from a goof in a cocked hat and you don't know the strength or purity when you can get 100% pure USP dope and clean needles at the dispensary?

Dope fiends will have to register and forfeit their drivers license and get an ID clearly marked to show they are registered addicts.

No more profit equals no more drug wars. And those who are intent on using will destroy their own lives but hopefully it will cut down on robbery, shootings, burglary etc.

Of course, treatment programs will be all over too. If you want the dope, have at it. If you want treatment, that's available too.

Or we can keep on as we have been and keep on making many Al Capone's out there, dealing drugs instead of beer and whiskey.

8/08/2014 08:19:00 PM wow pretty pathetic if you don't have any other skills to fall back on. The city offers tuition reimbursement. Why don't you learn a new skill so you have options? Or would you rather complain and do nothing about your unhappiness--hmmmmm

Hello Mr born in '70w/ 23.5 yrs on now! I have always loved the arrested adolescents that have to add the "and a half years", as if that lends just a little bit more credence to whatever nonsense you are saying.

The poster was saying that most people on the job have only had to work under two asshole mayors that hated the police. You, of course, turned it around to be a discussion about yourself. You didn't,t have to tell us you never had a job before this. It is obvious.

A lifetime of crime and being on the top of the totem pole and all he can afford is a couple of buildings. He should know that those Section 8-ers will tear the place apart.

8/08/2014 10:40:00 AMMyth - well not entirely true. About 8 years ago I leased a home I bought and rehabbed to a section 8 recipient who had two children. The only annoyance and what has me skeptical of renting to a section 8 recipient again is section 8 in its self. They like to do annual or surprise visits and the SMALLEST thing is a HUGE problem for section 8. I have no complaints about the former tenant though. When she moved, nothing was trashed. A simple carpet cleaning and the fixing of a wall that had gotten a little banged up from a bed frame railing.

This is a bit off topic SCC but the powers that be plan on ultimately releasing every officers cr history or making it available upon request. That's right every officer will have their Complaint History available under the guise of transparency and credibility ...... You heard it here first. The first step is to release these records of certain officers then when it raises more questions than it answers the dept. Will make every officers complaint history available. Wait until an officer goes to court on a trial and the defense atty introduces the officers complaint history as evidence..... This is not good, stay tuned....... This is in the making right now at 35th street. They just want to make sure it stands up to a possible court action.

8/08/2014 10:50:00 AM

That's like introducing a bad guys arrest history in a criminal trial. Not happening. Now in a civil lawsuit that might be a different story. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure your cr history would not be admissible in criminal proceedings.

Anonymous said...Off Topic:John Kass wrote in his column today that "The cops loathe him [Rahm] but the cops loathe all mayors".

Not true.

Chicago's mayors from 1979 through 1989 were either very supportive of the the police [Jane Byrne] or of no consequence [Washington, Orr, and Sawyer] during their terms.

It was when Richie Daley and then Rahm, both police haters, took office that the current police department reacted to their departmentally destructive stances.

Today, a cop who came on the job at 21 years of age, would have to have been born in 1968 or earlier. In other words, they would have to have at least twenty five years on the job.

The majority of the department has known only two mayors:The police haters.

So, for clarification sake, lets just say that, for the most part, cops hate the only two mayors they have ever experienced.8/08/2014 09:09:00 AM

Washington didn't serve long enough,but he was going to remove the residency requirement,however Vrdolyak and Burke nixed that with the other 27 silly aldermen that rejected everything Washington wanted to do.

Great work. They are destroying the neighborhood and the city. Hopefully they will get loooong sentences. But, what is the strategy for the gap that has been in the hierarchy of gangs that now need new leaders. My experience has been that they don't vote for a new boss. They shoot it out and they last one standing takes over. More shootings more violence. What is the strategy Superintendent?

I have over 21 yrs on and I was born in 1970, I think this is a great job. I've said it before they screw with us and are corrupt. You work for the city of chicago just the way it is. I only have a high school diploma so il never get promoted, but how do you complain about 80k a year, medical, paid holidays and never have to worry about layoffs. If you find that in the private sector for a high school graduate let me know. I know it's dangerous you can get shot. Still more dangerous working construction. For less pay and harder work. Why don't you go to the trade union halls and see how many card holders are sitting at home right now no work . I know 134 got at least a 1000.

Yeah, the West Side is going to have 0% unemployment after drugs are legalized. They aren't going to find some other way to illegally obtain money. You are a certifiable moron. Burglaries, robberies, theft all through the roof. And guess what genius, some of those will end in shootings and murders. The violent death rate will remain the same and the death rate among users will skyrocket. Go back to Fantasyland.

The first step is to release these records of certain officers then when it raises more questions than it answers the dept. Will make every officers complaint history available. Wait until an officer goes to court on a trial and the defense atty introduces the officers complaint history as evidence..... This is not good, stay tuned

As long as the case makes it to trial it becomes the State's Attorney's problem - and they have to run for election

LTo 2:18 pm the war on drugs is not a failure, for the rgt people there is a lot of money being made off the war on drugs. Also what do you think would happen if they couldn't make money selling drugs on the corner. I don't think they would go to college or get a job so the violence rate on ordinary citizens robberies, burglaries, thefts would skyrocket. I'd rather they keep the majority of violence in their area in fact give them a free zone like in the Wire.

8/08/2014 03:54:00 PMThey already do that in their areas along with the dopefiends they sell to. Robbing and burglarizing, sometimes shooting and killing ordinary citizens there. That'll change in a minute, anyway. Already has actually. Why rob someone who probably has as much money on them as you do when you can go up north and score $200 and a phone?

I find this interesting that buildings could be purchased without verification and documentation of income. Think about your mortgage. All the documentation you provided which were forwarded to private companies like the credit bureaus and Lexis-Nexis for verification. No verification-no loan. After submission, your personal financial dossier is amassed as their business records for sale with their subscribers paying a fee for the information you were strong-armed into giving up. All information given was scrubbed for authenticity by their extensive all encompassing information collection networks. You are intentionally misled on privacy and confidentiality. Your privacy ends when you voluntarily submit your records for inspection letting the privacy genie out of the bottle and ultimately submitted records become their private sector intellectual property to migrate into investigative/ marketing/ verification databases for sale without your knowledge, without your consent. Its about increasing revenues and making the product more “valuable” and more “encompassing” to information seeking subscribers. All perfectly legal of course.

These companies also collect public information on criminal cases but somehow this drug kingpin was able to avoid detection when getting his loans and registering his properties with taxing authorities. Declare income that cannot be verified and the taxing authorities are contacted by law initiating a criminal/civil investigation. You would think the I.R.S. would have conducted a thorough T.E.A. Party-like investigation on a documented criminal with a narcotics distribution history with substantial assets with no legitimate source of income. Instead federal taxing bodies would rather investigate political opposition who seek change while expressing their Constitutionally protected 1st Amendment Rights petitioning government. A criminal investigation nonetheless for those who challenge the status quo.

It’s a safe bet the drug enterprise entrepreneur had full use of professional services from lawyers, accountants and investment professionals keeping his investments legit thereby keeping the tax and law enforcement boogiemens away. Wonder of any of those directly involved in this conspiracy will lose their personal freedom and be stripped of their professional licenses. And don’t forget lawyers, accountants, investment advisers and government agencies (IRS included) that routinely use and have a license agreement to purchase the use of private-sector intrusive databases under a cloak of secrecy. The aforementioned are the biggest users and source of for-profit revenues for the credit bureaus and Lexis-Nexis companies. Lots of available information but no investigation by govt. agencies and inquiries by those private sector holders of professional licenses into possible criminal/money laundering activities.

See something; say something is a motto to live by. The government couldn’t figure this out all along and this thing morphed into a multimillion dollar criminal narcotics distribution enterprise laundering drug money and then collecting federal money in the form of section 8. Section 8 money seems to flow without some sort of verification of legally acquired assets, background check or possible criminal connection for in essence, a federal housing provider. Now enter the feds riding their white horse saving impoverished communities from the criminal who should have been investigated on so many fronts by so many federal agencies. And we put our faith in all these agencies namely, the IRS, the DEA, the federal dept. of housing, the justice department and the dept. of urban affairs to use common sense, to exercise due diligence, to initiate investigations and to enforce criminal laws. With all the red flags it seems negligence of the obvious has prevailed and is a standard operating procedure. Now the feds are hailed as urban heroes./////////////////////////

Hello Mr born in '70w/ 23.5 yrs on now! I have always loved the arrested adolescents that have to add the "and a half years", as if that lends just a little bit more credence to whatever nonsense you are saying.

The poster was saying that most people on the job have only had to work under two asshole mayors that hated the police. You, of course, turned it around to be a discussion about yourself. You didn't,t have to tell us you never had a job before this. It is obvious.

8/08/2014 10:40:00 AMMyth - well not entirely true. About 8 years ago I leased a home I bought and rehabbed to a section 8 recipient who had two children. The only annoyance and what has me skeptical of renting to a section 8 recipient again is section 8 in its self. They like to do annual or surprise visits and the SMALLEST thing is a HUGE problem for section 8. I have no complaints about the former tenant though. When she moved, nothing was trashed. A simple carpet cleaning and the fixing of a wall that had gotten a little banged up from a bed frame railing.

Section 8 means guaranteed rent payment

Appears Section 8 is coming to Edison Park. Check out the 7300 W block of Touhy. Moved in almost across from St. Juliana. Within a week the house next door has a for sale sign out.

In response to 8/09/2014 01:00:00 AM - of course they won't just go legit, that would entail actual work and self pride and a belief in working for what you want. We all know that mentality just doesn't exsist in certain individuals or communities. However it remains that legalization would be a tool to remove a major barrier that continues the insanity of delving further into debt to fund "a war on drugs" that is un winnable. We have an opportunity that potentially situates us as a society to "let this crisis go to waste" for once.

Let me ask you this-would you rather have an addict who chooses to not seek abstinence or treatment in place of the next great high that eventually kills him? Or would you rather maintain the status quo of politicians that engage in practices like fast and furious and investment in privitized prisons or use of tax payer funded drug courts and social programs that only benefit the same politicians financially? Couldn't that money as well as the money from taxing the drug (s) be better served in funding our pensions?

Plus then we could actually keep violent assholes incarcerated and not listen to overcrowding bullshit justifications of early release since statistics show a majority of incarcerated are there for non violent drug offenses. We would be better positioned to respond appropriately and keep incarcerated the assholes who shoot at police and are pled down (if even charged in first place) from attempted murder with a slap on the hand.

(Anonymous Anonymous said...To 2:18 pm the war on drugs is not a failure, for the rgt people there is a lot of money being made off the war on drugs. Also what do you think would happen if they couldn't make money selling drugs on the corner. I don't think they would go to college or get a job so the violence rate on ordinary citizens robberies, burglaries, thefts would skyrocket. I'd rather they keep the majority of violence in their area in fact give them a free zone like in the Wire.

8/08/2014 03:54:00 PM)

One of the few that gets it on here. If any narcs were legalized, it would be taxed to shit by the City, County, State, and maybe Feds, thus raising the price. Boo, Youngblood, and G on the corner will undercut the "legal" joints and still be operating. You don't think the corner boys are going to keep records of what they sell and turn it in with their sales tax check, or buy their "tax Stamps" for their shit?

And even better is, if a legal dope store starts lowering their prices and attempts to undercut the corner crew, a few of them will pay a visit to the legal joint and the white, make believe hippie, 30 somethings that run it and work there, and slaughter everyone in the joint to get their point across. They do it to other Somalian Warriors on the set on the next block over, what makes anyone think the corner boys wouldn't do it to some play-hippie white boys running their legal dope store. Or walking in and doing a dope rip on the legal joint. And I wouldn't work security in the legal store for $100 an hour just for that reason.

All the corner boys know is violence, think that will stop with legalization?

Only people that live in "The World of Theory" think legalization will work. Those of us on the street know the chaos that will ensue.

The Community Bank of Lawndale went out of business because it loaned money to drug dealers and hoodlums and when they could not make their payments, someone, one of their hoodlums or victims' pushed a button on the computer and all of the names of the loanees' disappeared. The bank lost $325,000 of loans because they did not know who they loaned it too. Convenient, yes.

There have been programs for addicts for years, you have to want to get clean to start them and succeed in them.

There are jobs out there, you have to want to work in order and be reliable in order to get one and keep one. It's easier to do something illegal, steal from others and employ violence in order to do so.

The so called money from taxes on drugs won't solve the problem. Closet liberals like you think money can be thrown at any problem and fix it. You cannot buy morals. You cannot buy ethics. You cannot buy common sense or intelligence. You cannot buy motivation or dependability. The post on 10 AUG 14 at 9:58am hit it dead on.